Basketball: Future Panthers participate in high school charity event

A pair of future Pitt basketball players joined some of college basketball’s brightest… A pair of future Pitt basketball players joined some of college basketball’s brightest upcoming talents a few weeks ago to showcase their abilities for charity.

Chris Jones, who will be a freshman guard on the Pitt men’s team next season, showed off his skills on the court during the Mary Kline Classic on May 5, while 6-foot-11 Marvadene “Bubbles” Anderson, the most prominent member of the women’s team’s incoming recruiting class, judged the event’s dunk contest.

“I felt good out there playing with all these guys,” Jones said after the game. “It’s a very fun event to be a part of.”

The Mary Kline Classic — now in its second year of play — is an annual event hosted by high school basketball recruiting guru Alex Kline at the Pennington School in central New Jersey.

Kline, who lost his mother, Mary, to brain cancer when he was in elementary school, invited some of the most talented high school stars on the east coast to the event.

The event sends 100 percent of its proceeds to the American Cancer Society for brain tumor research.

“It makes it even better to come out here and play for a cause like this,” Jones said.

Jones, who scored 1,319 career points at Teaneck High School, signed his National Letter of Intent for Pitt in mid-April.

The 6-foot-5 guard was a New Jersey First Team All-State selection his senior season, during which he averaged 21.2 points, 10.2 rebounds and 3.7 assists.

The new recruit said Pitt’s basketball tradition and his relationship with the current coaches were the key factors that led him to commit to the school.

“I want to be a part of Pitt’s great history,” Jones said. “Jamie Dixon is a nice man, a great coach. I also have a great relationship with [assistant coach] Brandin Knight and the rest of the coaching staff.”

Kline expressed optimism about Jones’ potential impact at Pitt.

“Chris is an extremely versatile player who will play both the [shooting guard] and [small forward] in college,” Kline said. “He is not going to see the floor early, but will make a great four-year player who will make a major impact in his junior and senior seasons at Pitt.”

Jones participated on the red senior team in the Mary Kline Classic — an event that included an underclassmen game and a senior game, along with skills, 3-point and dunk competitions.

“The Kline Classic was a great talent showcase, with some of the best high school players in the country,” said Ali Aneizi, a Pitt sophomore who attended the event. “The fact that Chris Jones was invited and played well shows that he can compete at Pitt’s level.”

Also representing Pitt at the event was Anderson, an 18-year-old native Jamaican who is considered to be the tallest teenage girl in the world.

She made her appearance as a featured judge in the dunk competition and generously gave most dunks a perfect 10 score.

Anderson, who averaged 23 points, 6.2 rebounds, and 2.5 blocks per game at Rutgers Prep and has appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” will hope to help rebuild a Pitt women’s basketball program that went winless in Big East play last season.

Along with Pitt’s 6-foot-11 men’s basketball center Malcolm Gilbert, who was watching his brother Marcus at the event, Anderson towered over much of the sell-out crowd.

“Bubbles could be the tallest defender Malcolm Gilbert has to practice against at Pitt,” Aneizi said, joking about the height of the pair of players.

This was the second consecutive year that two future Panthers participated in the Classic.

In 2011, Pitt recruits Khem Birch and John Johnson put up double-digit points in the event’s first year.

The second annual Mary Kline Classic raised a total of more than $20,000 for cancer research — an amount that nearly tripled last year’s total.

Kline said that he plans on moving the event to a bigger venue next year in the hope of attracting more donations for cancer research, as well as even better basketball talent.

“Next year’s event will feature an even more stacked lineup in the senior and underclassmen games,” Kline said, “including what we hope to be the No. 1 and No. 2 rising juniors in the country.”